


Bodies Like Homes Of War

by captainkilly



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, New Year's Eve, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:10:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8022169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkilly/pseuds/captainkilly
Summary: A New Year's Eve in Hell's Kitchen. The last person he expected to see was a weeping Karen Page.





	Bodies Like Homes Of War

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are once more with a Kastle oneshot. Canon times the reveal of Matt's Daredevil-identity to Karen as having been around Christmas.. so I wondered how she spent New Year's. ;) (Frank ran away with my writing again, can you tell?)

He finds her before the clock strikes midnight. It's too cold out tonight for her bare legs and thin clothes, but he doesn't detect so much as a shiver from her when he edges closer to the park bench. She was always made of stronger stuff than the rest of this city. She wears New York like he does: bone-deep, skin-tight, locked in closed smiles and weary eyes.  
  
Seeing her cry is like watching a skyscraper tumble and fall. Cities don't recover from that. They make their heroes on the ashes of the rubble instead while they pray for better days. This city has a fight in its belly, though you'd never know it until its battles landed at your door. Briefly, he wonders if he can tread on her ashes to help her rebirth and be called a hero for it. Some kind of saviour.  
  
He seats himself on the bench next to her before he can stop himself. He's aware that his right hand is shaking a little, almost like that small center-and-focus move he makes before a fight, but he can't seem to stop that from happening any more than he can stop her tears from falling. He hasn't seen her since the rooftop. Hasn't talked with her since the woods. He's not sure what he's doing here.  
  
She is wiping her tears away with one hand. He hears her inhale, marred with the after-effects of crying. She brushes her hair away from her face with her other hand. Some flyaway strands brush against him as she turns her head to look at him. He is careful not to meet her eyes. He's not sure he could take that bright, bright blue looking back at him.  
  
She's always reminded him of the first light of morning.  
  
"Aren't you going to say hello?" Her voice is tinged with something he very nearly identifies as amusement before he believes he is mistaken. She wavers slightly on the 'hello'. "I'd almost believe you returned from the dead, but you're not carrying any coffee. Therefore, it can't be you and I'm hallucinating you sitting next to me right now."  
  
"Hello, ma'am," he says then, because she is on the verge of rambling at a million miles an hour just to take her mind off whatever's hurt her. He pauses for a moment. Then inexplicably finds himself adding something else. "I have coffee in my car."  
  
"Of course you do," she says in reply, as though it's the most natural thing in the world, and her voice sounds less wobbly now. "At least _that_ hasn't changed. One thing in the world still makes sense. Good to know."  
  
"Are you okay?" The question's left his mouth before he had a chance to think it through. She doesn't quite sound like herself. Doesn't sound like the steel backbone and fearless voice of justice he knows her to be. She sounds like a woman unraveled. Like someone trying to hold the pieces of something together and knowing that it's all crumbling in her hands no matter how hard she tries.  
  
He knows a thing or two about clinging to something you can't ever get back.  
  
"Not really," she admits to him softly. He glances sideways at her. Her gaze is fixed on the park's pond in front of them. There is bitterness in the edge of her tone. "I feel like my entire life went to shit in a matter of days. Everything you told me to hold onto suddenly fell to pieces."  
  
He understands, then, why she's out in the park alone on New Year's Eve. He offers up one word. A name. A devil or demon. "Murdock." He knows it's not just some shitty break-up. Not just some hello-and-goodbye phase that some relationships tend to have. Karen Page wouldn't fall apart weeping over _that_.  
  
"Does everyone know?" she asks him a moment later. Her voice sounds brittle in the air between them. She turns her head toward him. "I keep asking myself: if he told everyone else, then why didn't he tell me? What is it about me that would make his secret so easy to keep locked away?"  
  
He shakes his head and closes his eyes briefly. Tries to organise what remains of his thoughts now that he feels her imploring gaze on him. "It's not you," he finally says. He knows this the way he knows how to assemble and clean any gun on this planet. He knows this like he knows the pinch and pull of stitches in skin, the feeling of scraped knuckles as he bends and breaks everything he touches, the certainty that the sun's going to rise every morning despite loss and grief and rage so bloody he can't see the end of it. "If he tells someone, it's out of necessity. If he reveals himself, it's because he needs something to end. Whatever else there is in his line of reasoning, it has nothing to do with the way you are as a person."  
  
"It has _everything_ to do with that. You weren't -- god, you weren't _there_." She argues back at him, but he senses tiredness rather than a fight in her words. "You weren't _there_ when we were in the middle of your case and he was up on his moral high horse talking about how murder isn't defensible or excusable. I remember when he let Foggy down and I couldn't wrap my head around anything that could be more important than your case." He sits in silence as she spews her vitriol out. "I was so mad at him trying to protect me from you. I was _so_ spitting mad that he couldn't see that loss drives us to do the same things fear does. It was like he hadn't ever felt that need, that urge, to fight his way out of his nightmares."  
  
"I warned him once," he rumbles, "that if he ever crossed over to my side of the line he wouldn't be able to come back from that. You know you can't come back from that." He sighs, then. "I assume you came to my defense there. Murdock wouldn't get that, because he doesn't know that part of you. His decision to not tell you about his other identity is his misguided belief that he can somehow keep those parts of his life separate. That if he doesn't say a word, you won't get pulled in as leverage. Fucking bullshit if you ask me."  
  
"He's always been big on protecting me."  
  
He hums his assent to that. Understands Murdock about that one thing, at least, though he can't pretend to understand the man anymore on other things. Murdock carries his faith in his fists and his righteousness. He finds it exceedingly difficult to hate the man for it, though he'll always scoff and call the Devil of Hell's Kitchen a half-measure at best. Some things need more than fists to be stopped. Some things in life need bullets and cold bodies put in the ground. But he understands the man when it comes to Karen Page. Thinks that maybe he sees more of her than Murdock does, somehow, though he cannot fathom how that came to be. He grasps the one thing Murdock failed to grasp about her: the last thing she needs is a shield.  
  
She carries herself like she doesn't need anybody. Now that she's drawing her coat tighter around herself, he's reminded of all the times she came to see him during his arrest. She was her own woman then as much as she is now. _Beholden to no one_ , his mind had murmured when she walked away.  
  
Christ.  
  
He's forgotten how much that hurt.  
  
He makes a decision in the next few seconds. Doesn't stop to think about consequences. Doesn't stop to think that he's another form of a shield. Doesn't even want to consider that he is not what she needs. (It's more than _he_ needs _her_ , but he doesn't talk about that. Doesn't even think about that.)  
  
"Let me walk you home," he says.  
  
It's a credit to her character that all she does is smile at him and grab her purse off of the bench. She's up on her feet before he is. He knows she understands the offer to be vastly different from Murdock's continuous insertions in her life. He rises to his feet slowly and looks her in the eye for the first time since his arrival. She's about his height when she wears heels, fearless and proud, and the small smile that curves around her mouth almost feels like a 'welcome home'. She's bright and dark like the city that curves and sweeps up around them.  
  
"What?" she asks him with a laugh. Caught staring. He almost feels sheepish over that. "Are you really going to walk me home?"  
  
He nods. Begins to walk down the path briskly. He knows where she lives. Wonders if the bulletholes still riddle that tiny thing she called an apartment. He hears the click of her heels as she follows him and finally matches his stride. (It's more that he is matching hers, but he is careful not to let her notice that.)  
  
A featherlight touch on his inner elbow nearly makes him lose his footing. She's tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. Her fingers curl lightly around his jacket while they walk. It's been months since anyone's been this close to touch but not harm. It's the first time he doesn't think about all the last times he had with people who gave a damn. It's just her. She's here with him and he's here with her.  
  
They walk in companionable silence for a while. The park isn't as busy as Central or other places on New Year's can be. To the outside world looking in, they must seem more like a couple on a midnight stroll than warrior and intelligence meeting in the world they try to keep safe. He doesn't find himself rejecting the thought.  
  
"Is it midnight yet?"  
  
"Nah." He double-checks his watch, just to be sure. "We'll be home before the clock strikes twelve."  
  
"Oh, very Cinderella of you," she laughs. He wants to smash his face in with his fists when he realises he has used the infernal 'we' that he swore to all the gods and devils he'd never use again. His hands clench involuntarily. Stupid stupid _stupid_. He exhales and it takes a lot of willpower to focus on what she's asking him now. "What were you doing out here anyway?"  
  
He's glad she always knows when to change a subject.  
  
"Followed up on a lead I had on the Irish. Didn't pan out so well. The guy I was tracing turned out to be Scottish and mortally offended at being thought of as Irish. We had a bit of a situation."  
  
"You punched him in the face, didn't you?" He chuckles. It's all the answer she needs. She sounds amused in her reply. "He can't help the fact that the Irish have got their pride."  
  
"Oh hell no, don't say it.."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're not Irish," he grumbles at her when she begins to laugh in earnest. He doesn't tell her that her laugh warms the chill that's settled into his bones. "There is no way that you just so happen to agree with a Scotsman who almost broke my kneecap."  
  
Her laughter fills the park entrance to the point where the few people still out on the street glance their way. This part of the city celebrates the start of a new year in the quiet of their homes and the night-to-forget clubs. He thinks it's a testament to the times they live in that her laughter doesn't elict anything but frowns and odd looks. He finds himself smiling back at her instead.  
  
"I'm not Irish," she confirms, "but it's fun to watch you squirm a little." Her smile turns a little smug. "What did the Irish do to incite your scorn anyway?"  
  
"Weapons deal with a biker gang. Nasty business, that."  
  
She pauses thoughtfully for a while as he leads her further down the block. He can practically feel the cogs of her wheels spinning in her head. They've been here so many times before. It doesn't matter which street they're standing on or which room they're sitting in. He knows how she thinks. What she believes. What she'll stand up for.  
  
"Is this related to that shootout on the freeway? I heard through one of my contacts that the guns were Russian. As in: legitimately traded by the Russians throughout Europe to the United States." He _also_ loves the fact that she can still surprise him every once in a while. "I had no idea they were using the Irish as middlemen. Makes sense, though. The Russians have been dirt in this city a while now. Fisk probably wouldn't stand for them regaining their ground."  
  
"The hell's Fisk got to do with it?"  
  
"He runs it. All of it. Locking him up in jail was just a way to ensure he wasn't free to roam and do any nasty business himself. It's made life a little harder for him." She sounds like the cat that ate the canary. He knows enough about her work for Nelson  & Murdock to know she was instrumental in Fisk's takedown. "I've been trying to pin more stuff on him. He's been making inquiries into the work we did as attorneys. I can't have him asking questions."  
  
She presents it as so final that he knows there's more to the case than just another kingpin trying to rule the roost. It's personal. He doesn't ask. Instead, he hums softly under his breath. "I could see what I can dig up on that. You and I don't exactly run in the same circles. One of my contacts might know something." He glances at her and is surprised to see her shoulders slacken in relief. "Until then, you stay out of trouble. At least try to. I'll not have you plugged or knifed or worse, you hear me?" He doesn't know what he'd do in that case.  
  
He supposes that it's better for Hell's Kitchen that he never finds out.  
  
"I'll keep my head down," she asserts so softly that for a moment he fears she's heard the panic in his voice. "You know better than to dissuade me from it, though. I _have to_ see this through, Frank. No matter the cost. It'd help to have your help."  
  
"You know you have it," he says as they cross the street and turn the corner that leads to her apartment block. "Least I can do for you, ma'am."  
  
She sighs softly. "It's Karen," she admonishes him. Her slight smile tells him she doesn't mind the official title, either. "You've earned the first name basis a million times over."  
  
"And there was one time I didn't," he reminds her. They are closer to her apartment now. He's not sure why he's reminding her of their last goodbye. He doesn't regret walking away from her. (Or so he tells himself in the dead of night when all he has is coffee and more demons than he knows how to fight.) "I don't feel like I've earned anything at all."  
  
They're at her doorstep now. The time's edging closer to midnight, but they're not the types of people to be in a festive mood. She's let go of his arm to search for her keys in her bag. When she finally turns around to face him, she's biting her lip and looking down at him from her elevated position on the second step up toward her door. He finds it increasingly hard to look at her.  
  
"Why don't you and your almost-busted kneecap come in for a cup of coffee?" she asks in a tone that really brooks no argument. "Your car's nowhere near here and it sounds like you could use a fix."  
  
"You're making me sound like an addict," he complains good-naturedly. He treads on the first step and brushes up against her. "Are you sure about this.. K-Karen?"  
  
He hates himself for stumbling over her name like some lovesick teenager.  
  
"I'm sure." Her breath is like a ghost on his skin. He's captured in the blue of her eyes -- sky blue, ice blue, Marine blue, Karen blue, depending on how much light they catch. He swallows his nerves. She looks like she's trying to steady herself, too, when she rambles on in the next few breaths. "I don't want to be alone on New Year's. I don't want you to be alone either. I had a really shitty Christmas thanks to Matt and I don't want to go into a new year feeling like I'm clinging to the old. I'm glad you dragged me off that park bench." A wry smile. Then, a quip. "We can be Coffeeholics Anonymous that way."  
  
"I'm glad I did, too." He murmurs his gratitude so softly that he believes not even Murdock would be able to pick up on it. He feels a smile tug at his lips before he has a chance to retract it. Takes her up on her offer before he's had a chance to think it through. "Thank you."  
  
She acknowledges it with a slight nod and turns to open the door. It jams a little and she pulls hard at it before releasing it to swing open. The hallway that lies beyond it has obviously seen better days, but they don't linger there once they've both stepped inside. She locks the door behind him. Leads him up the stairs. What's left of the carpetry masks their footsteps.  
  
They're like ghosts in this place.  
  
Her apartment is as tiny as he remembers it. There's hardly any space between couch and kitchen now that she's filled the room with files and boxes. He raises his eyebrow at the still-present bulletholes. Resolves to fix her walls up for her sometime in the future. He files it away under 'the least I can do', while it's really got everything to do with not wanting to lose sight of her again. He shrugs his jacket off.  
  
"Just put it on one of the chairs," she says with a casual wave of her hand. She's already halfway to the kitchen counter and hasn't even bothered to remove her own coat. "It's been a mess since I've been writing articles and going out at all hours to track down leads. This place is all I can afford."  
  
"It's a good place," he reassures her. "Better than living out of local squats and your car, trust me on that count. Did you know what kind of area it was when you moved in?"  
  
She nods sharply. "I'd done my research. It seemed like the best place to disappear into." She doesn't offer up any kind of explanation. He knows she's got plenty to run from. He can hear it in the tightness of her voice. See it in the way her hand slightly shakes as it hovers over the coffeepot. She's like him, but yet not like him. "I got a steep discount on the rent, as the previous owner of this lovely space had died of an overdose and it took them all of three days to find him in the closet over there." She jerks her head at a door to the far side of the room. "Nobody else wanted to take a place someone had curled up and died in."  
  
"Superstitious Italians," he says with a chuckle. "I wouldn't wanna live here either."  
  
She makes a noise that's part-derision and part-amusement and he appreciates her that much more for it. Of course she doesn't believe in being haunted in such a literal sense. He's quite sure he doesn't, either, but he is less sure of it at the times when a child's laughter rings out in his ears. Or when he smells vanilla and roses and all he thinks about is his wife's hand in his own. He can't hear a piano piece without wanting to smash his head through glass.  
  
He wonders if all homes are haunted this way somehow.  
  
He's not aware he's said that last part out loud until she slowly turns to look at him. She stares at him with a slight frown marring her perfect features. "I don't think our homes are the things that are haunted," she finally says. He sinks down on her small couch and watches her contemplate and deliberate. "I think our bodies are the things that are haunted. Otherwise, we wouldn't have nightmares or flashbacks to different times. Our memories create our ghosts."  
  
"Our bodies are our homes," he offers up in the small space between them. He looks down at his hands. A bruise is forming on top of one of his knuckles. He can't erase who he is anymore. "Mine is a home of war."  
  
She unbuttons her coat, shrugs it off and drops it unceremoniously on top of his. Doesn't take her eyes off of him. He shifts under her scrutiny. She leans against her kitchen counter and it's one of those times again when he has no idea what she's really thinking. She's unreadable to him in these moments. He almost laughs when she takes the time to kick her heels off now that she's done preparing the coffee. She's so unlike anyone he's ever known that he's glad for it.  
  
"I wonder what my body is home to," he hears her whisper in the quiet. "What ghosts may haunt its bones and direct its blood. It's not peace and flowers and sunny days, that's for sure." Her voice edges closer to dark. "You're right in that you can't come back from what you've done. Can't come back from it the same way you were. I don't even _remember_ who I was before."  
  
"Maybe your body's a home of war, too." He murmurs it loudly enough for her to hear every word of it. He's aware that his voice trembles and threatens to break if he goes too far. If he dares so far. "Not like a world war, not like it's all you eat and sleep and wake up to in the morning. But like a civil war or a revolution that's been kindled somehow. Like something that tastes how justice feels." He dares not look at her. He'd lose his nerve if he did. "You'll have quieter times. Peaceful ones even. Not all of it is a fight, Karen." He doesn't stumble over her name this time, though it still feels alien on his tongue. It should feel more normal to him than it does. He's thought of her as Karen since he last stood in this apartment. Since she welcomed him in by holding him at gunpoint and not wavering once on that. "Your war's different from mine. It's fine that you don't remember who you were. You're a good person."  
  
He's not aware that she's edged closer to the couch until she's standing almost right in front of him. He barely has the chance to get used to her proximity before she drops to the floor in front of him unceremoniously and leans back against his legs. Her own legs are stretched out and she's wiggling her toes just a little bit as she shifts to sit closer against him. Golden strands of hair brush over his legs and he thinks for a split second that the sun has poured itself into his lap. He's barely able to breathe now that her head's resting against his knees. He feels her back press into his legs. He's too scared to move.  
  
He doesn't want to disrupt this moment.  
  
When she speaks next, her voice is less dark. Less scared and less terrifying all at the same time, though he dares not examine why he fears her fear. She sounds young for a moment there. He wants to reach inside himself and tear his treacherous heart to pieces. She's full of can't, of won't, of _shouldn't_ when she is all he can feel is real. She smells like peaches and something herbal he can't begin to identify. He wonders at how much she feels like summer even in the middle of the coldest days of the year.  
  
"You're a good person, too," she tells him, and he knows she means it even when he doesn't believe that anymore. "You'll come back from war someday." Her hand curls around his knee while she speaks, as if to anchor him with some desperate plea to stay. "Even when it's in your final moments before you die, Frank, you'll have peace. Even when it's only in that intake of breath before you pull a trigger. Even when it's only in the here and now, while your body's still thrumming with a fight and your mind's going a million miles an hour." He wonders why her voice trembles but doesn't break. She's made of stronger stuff than he, but he never knew stardust to be made of steel. "You'll come back from war and _not_ lose everything."  
  
"Is that hope, ma'am?"  
  
"A semblance of it."  
  
There's contentment in her voice when she tells him she doesn't really want to get up and grab the coffee. He replies he's had staler coffee than that, so it's all right, and it's like he is whispering 'please stay please stay _please stay_ ' while he's talking about coffee like it's the blood that runs through both their veins. She draws her legs up to curl against him. He leans forward into her without even meaning to.  
  
His hand's shaking again like it does before a fight. He knows he's going to lose this one right before his fingers touch her hair and tangle slightly within it. He knows he's lost the fight completely when she shifts and hums softly to herself. He hates himself as soon as his other hand closes over hers.  
  
He's sure that one day he'll appreciate the fact that literal fireworks went off the second he touched her. He's also sure that it's some kind of divine irony -- who's he kidding: it's God having a laugh at his sorry expense. The clock's struck midnight. One year of pure hell gone up in smoke and chimes. He scrapes his throat.  
  
"Happy New Year, ma'am."  
  
Her hand moves underneath his own and he almost pulls away. She's interlaced her fingers with his own before he has that chance. Her hand feels small in his. Her hair flows and trickles through his fingers. She gazes up at him and it's nothing but Karen blue-and-gold he sees. Her face is illuminated by the flashes and whizzbangs of new beginnings.  
  
Her smile is radiant like the sunrise over Central Park. The shadows in her eyes shift like the alleyways of Hell's Kitchen: a warning that curiosity really often does kill the cat. He feels captive under her gaze. She wears the city in her bones like he does and he thinks to himself that maybe heroes prevent each other from becoming ashes in a world that swallows their warfare whole.  
  
He gazes back at her and wonders when she began to feel like home.  
  
"Happy New Year, Frank."


End file.
